Toyota FCV-R Hydrogen Car Wows at CES 2014

Toyota reaffirmed its plan Jan. 6 at the Consumer Electronics Show to have a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle go on sale overseas in 2015.

At CES Toyota showed off the attention-grabbing FCV-R model, which is clearly all about flash. Toyota is a savvy enough company to know that science isn’t enough to sell a new technology to the media, or even the public. You need eye candy.

For that reason, Toyota’s other hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle, the one actually likely to meet the company’s 2015 deadline, remained just off-stage buried beneath camouflage that hid it probably not for being so radical, but for being so mundane.

“The mule,” as it’s being called, is not the focus of most articles about Toyota and CES this week. All of that attention is going to the FCV-R. The Mule’s structure beneath the camouflage, however, appears to be sensible, roomy, stable and demure. If it won’t be the actual body for Toyota’s hydrogen car next year, you can bet that it has the guts of the FCV-R inside and has been doing most of the street testing for it.

The FCV-R is an actual working model–no “concept’ attached to the end of its name. Its iridescent shade of blue is clearly meant to reinforce that this is a water based car. Hydrogen reacts with air in a tank aboard the car, which then powers an electric motor in a method very similar to a hybrid’s. The result is a 310 mile range between fill-ups–four times the range of most electric cars–and 0 to 60 mph in 10 seconds.

Of course, the bigger question is when hydrogen filling locations will become commonplace enough to justify mass production of fuel cell vehicles. In a zen sense, they will appear whenever we need them to—basically whenever demand is high enough to merit increased supply.

Until then, you can expect Toyota to blend the FCV-R and Mule together until you get something that looks, well, like a Prius. That’s essentially the styling behind the svelte lines and elongated body of the FCV-R. Given the rage for crossover SUVs these days, it might even make sense that U.S. buyers would respond better to the heft of a small SUV fuel cell vehicle instead of another diminutive sedan. Time will tell.